How a more democratic media provision gives power back to European citizens.

With some 370 million voters, the past European Parliament (EP) elections are one of the world’s largest democratic processes. Informing all these voters about the elections, relevant issues and the results is an important but difficult task. European media face problems such as disinformation and other challenges in bringing European news together through a pluralistic, multilingual and multicultural media landscape. Anno 2024, this is a complex landscape that includes alternative influential forms of digital media in addition to traditional journalistic media. Looking at the challenges of these different media forms reveals the power of good information provision and what is still needed to achieve this in Europe. 

The fight against disinformation

A key challenge for information provision surrounding the EP elections was disinformation. The EU diplomatic service (EEAS) defines disinformation, officially Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), as a ‘pattern of behaviour that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures and political processes’. Disinformation is manipulative and, unlike misinformation, deliberately spread by both domestic and foreign actors. In 2015,  EUvsDisinfo, the flagship project of the EEAS, was created to predict and tackle Russian disinformation campaigns against the EU.

European anti-disinformation networks warned of disinformation by foreign actors in the run-up to the EP elections. Since the war in Ukraine, Russia has been increasingly active in spreading disinformation in Europe surrounding the elections. The Baltics and larger European states such as Germany and France are particularly affected. Deep fakes in particular are a worrying problem. These are digitally manipulated (video) images whose visuals and sound are faked with artificial intelligence. By making the images as real as possible, the public can be convinced that persons have, for example, made certain statements when this is not the case. While the use of deepfakes of politicians seemed to have little impact during the EP elections, they have become increasingly realistic in recent years.

A more influential example of a disinformation campaign is operation overload, a pro-Russian disinformation campaign discovered by the Danish TjekDet anti-disinformation network. Since August 2023, fact-checkers have been inundated with requests to check misleading information. However, the debunking of these falsehoods generates publicity and further spread of disinformation. The overload causes delays in fact-checking and, in addition, nuanced checks are simplified to make misleading campaigns more believable.

The EDMO (European Digital Media Observatory), an EU-funded interdisciplinary network to combat disinformation, published a report during the elections. It showed that a month before the European elections, 15% of the disinformation monitored by the organisation focused on the European Union. Dominant were false stories about EU institutions (which were labelled corrupt and undemocratic), election rigging and the EU as an enemy of national interests. Other prominent topics of disinformation included the war in Ukraine, the assassination of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, immigration and, in smaller numbers, LGBTQ+ issues.

Compared to the 2019 EP elections, we now know more about the phenomenon of disinformation. At the Connecting EU 2023 conference, Croatian Violeta Jelić, member of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), gave a speech in which she stressed that disinformation should be fought not with censorship but with more information. This means more quality and authoritative journalism. Support for public media, independent media and investigative journalism can contribute to this, as can measures to prevent media company monopolies.

Bias in public, commercial and social media

Not only disinformation, but also media bias affects elections. This year, the Centre for Media Pluralism and Freedom conducted research on the fairness of public, commercial and online audiovisual media by, among other things, looking at the bias of different platforms for political advertisements. For public media, the risk of political bias was low, apart from Greece, Hungary and Malta. For commercial audiovisual media, the risk of bias was slightly higher but still relatively low. Both forms of media in most European countries have to abide by guidelines that ban political advertising or at least give advertisers a level playing field. Here, however, arrives another challenge; on the one hand, the research suggests that public and commercial audiovisual coverage in Europe is generally reliable and fair with a bias risk of 11%. Nevertheless, increasing reports of disinformation and smear campaigns have caused trust in these media to be damaged.

Furthermore, news on social media platforms and increasing online campaigning played a major role during the election. Online platforms, especially large social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, were found to have a higher 56% risk of political bias. This is because these online media companies have less strict guidelines for regulating and monitoring balanced political coverage. Adding to this, regardless of the diversity of information on offer, voters still receive one-sided information due to the way algorithms show political advertisements to users. In addition to this imbalance in political reporting, the EU also suffers from a lack of effective measures to combat the spread of false information on online platforms. 

Compared to national elections, voters are worse informed about European elections. Social media therefore pose both dangers and opportunities for election fairness. On the one hand, social media have a huge reach, and thus information can easily be spread through them. On the other hand, this information must be reliable and balanced, otherwise, disinformation and bias can harm European democracy. It is therefore important that online platforms start enforcing adequate regulations on political advertising and disinformation.

Opportunities for more reliable, high-quality news coverage

Not only national European media but also pan-European media can play an important role in providing information about the EU. As Jelić stressed, investing in more reliable information is the way to arm European citizens against disinformation and misinformation. Currently, several pan-European platforms are trying to meet this need. An advantage of pan-European media is that the target audience gets a balanced view of the European political landscape. Whereas national media often prioritise issues of national interest, pan-European media give a view on issues from a more European perspective.

However, this is not without its challenges. With its many member states, the EU has to deal with diverse perspectives and interests. In addition to this, the EU’s pluralism also brings language barriers. So far, pan-European media such as Politico Europe, Euractiv, Euronews and EUobserver seem to be popular mainly with European policymakers and political junkies. The limited popularity with the general public is mainly due to the fact that funding this kind of media appears to be difficult. There are few public funds and private funding through advertising is not very attractive because of the widespread European audience. As a result, premium articles end up behind a sky-high paywall and important sources of information are out of reach of ordinary European citizens. To make these media platforms accessible more funding is needed, for instance from the EU, provided measures are taken against the creation of media monopolies.

Besides pan-European media, there are bottom-up initiatives, for example, think tanks like European Democracy Lab and, of course, Shaping Europe. These initiatives attempt to make information about the EU accessible to a broad European audience. They also provide an opportunity to make European issues and perspectives accessible to a more local audience, such as national and regional target groups. Not only by providing multilingual information but also by contextualising information and bridging cultural gaps in a sociocultural, political, and economic plural Europe.

The future of pluralistic Europe

Although the EU has made progress in fighting disinformation in recent years, more needs to be done to improve the quality of information about the EU and inform voters. The last elections therefore showed that there is still much to be gained in terms of guidelines and enforcement of disinformation and political advertisements on social media. 

Online platforms, such as TikTok, Instagram, and X, are playing an increasing role in political campaigning and these media are highly susceptible to political bias and disinformation due to the lack of such effective guidelines. Such guidelines for online media platforms should improve transparency of information control and provide equal opportunities for political advertisers. Independent control of information can also contribute to less biased information provision and better armament against disinformation.

The seeds for reliable, quality information provision have already been planted. Bottom-up initiatives can be found all over Europe and, with the right support, they can make an important contribution. Pan-European media also offer an opportunity to better inform European citizens about EU affairs. Europe’s pluralism is not only a challenge but also a strength. With our many languages, cultures, customs, and knowledge, we all bring different perspectives that can contribute to solving European challenges. It is precisely by embracing that diversity that we can strengthen European information, thus building a transparent and democratic Europe.

Luna Verbaas is a master’s student in International Relations in Historical Perspective at Utrecht University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences with specializations in both international relations and philosophy. Her research interests include themes such as women’s rights, migration and the situation in the Middle East.

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